Point Loma Nazarene University dorm director fired over hazing
Male students at the private Christian university in San Diego were marched to the ocean for a 2 a.m. swim, officials say.
SAN DIEGO -- A dormitory director at Point Loma Nazarene University has been fired after protests over a hazing incident in which male students were marched to the ocean for a 2 a.m. swim, officials said.
Bob Brower, president of the Christian university, said today that the school has apologized to students and their parents and promised there will no further hazing.
"For us, hazing is certainly against what we would hold as the proper relationship among people at the university," Brower said.
The incident occurred last week when freshmen at all-male Young Hall were ordered to wake up, dress only in shorts, and then marched down the hill to the ocean and forced to go into the water. On the way back, many doffed their shorts as upperclassmen jeered.
Brower said hazing and other "coercive behavior" is banned by state and federal law.
"It used to be part of college life," he said, "but in recent years it has been prohibited by California and federal law."
Upperclassmen involved in forcing the students to participate face discipline, which could include expulsion. The swim reportedly had become a kind of unofficial tradition to begin the academic year but this year students and parents protested.
Located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the university has 3,000 students, small classes and a low student-to-professor ratio.
On its website, the university promises parents that their students will find a "learning community in an environment of vital Christianity, striv[ing] to fulfill its mission to teach, shape, and send quality graduates who are prepared to live out their faith in every aspect of their lives."
Brower, in an interview, said the university will continue to stress that hazing is unacceptable. "I expect it to end," he said.
tony.perry@latimes.com
